Marlene Dumas is set to break the Auction Record for an Artwork by a Living Female Artist

Carrying an estimate of $12 million - $18 million, it is poised to set the highest price at auction for an artwork by a living female artist. The work comes to Christie’s from the Rubell Family Collection, among the most distinguished private collections of contemporary art worldwide. The Rubell family is parting with its prized Marlene Dumas painting Miss January in order to continue the family’s mission of collecting and championing emerging artists. 

Sara Friedlander, Deputy Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s,remarks: “Through its monumental scale and singular subject matter, Miss January is truly the magnum opus of Marlene Dumas. In this painting, Dumas triumphantly demonstrates a formal mastery of the woman’s body while simultaneously freeing it from a tradition of subjection, upending normalized concepts of the female nude through the lens of a male-centric history. We are deeply honored to offer Miss January as a leading highlight during our Marquee Week this spring.” 

Dumas is known for her emotionally charged, psychologically complex portraits—often based on found photographs—which explore themes of sexuality, race, grief, motherhood, and the body. She investigates exposure versus concealment, with a practice that balances the tendency to reveal and the inclination to conceal. Painted in 1997, Miss January shows Dumas revisiting her very first known drawing, Miss World, executed thirty years earlier when she was just ten years old. Depicting ten idealized forms of glamorous models, the work was a clear foreshadowing of the artist’s lifelong fascination with the female figure. The title also heralds to Dumas’ first survey exhibition, Miss Interpreted, which took place at the Stedelijk in 1992, as well as her 1988 painting Misinterpreted, often considered a self-portrait. 

Dumas is recognized widely among the most influential painters today, with work included in the permanent collections of Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, United Kingdom. Since 2008, she has held major institutional retrospectives at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Tate Modern, London, and the Fondation Beyeler, Basel, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Menil Collection, Houston. 

Main Image: Marlene Dumas, Miss January, oil on canvas, Painted in 1997. 111 x 40 in. (281.9 x 101.6 cm.) Estimate: $12  - 18 million